Year 1
Year 1
The crisp October air swirled with the burnt colours of autumn as the trees dumped their leaves onto the pavements and littered the neighbourhood lawns with festive orange and reds. My fourteenth birthday had so far been awesome. My orthodontist had said my vile braces could finally be taken off, and I couldn’t stop running my tongue over the smooth surface of my teeth. My parents had actually listened to me for once and we were on our way to the huge bookshop in the centre of town, me armed with the money and book tokens from family members and my parents armed with a set budget for me for my birthday. After spending a few hours lost between the towering shelves of books – everything tends to tower over me, I was still waiting patiently for my growth spurt to start spurting – I was going to be meeting my friends at the travelling fair. This was the first year my parents were trusting us to go round on our own and it was going to be epic.
We were going to meet up with some B-O-Y-S! Yay. Can you hear the excitement in my voice? Yeah, me neither.
Clare and Mel had both already had their first kisses this year, and Clare had even had her bee-sting chest touched – over her tee-shirt of course – but still, this was the first tentative steps into adulthood that we were making. Well, that my friends were making.
My two best friends were six months older than I was, and that seemed to be a bigger age gap this last twelve months than it ever had been before. They had both grown at least four inches since they’re birthdays, and their bodies had started to show a little more definition – curvier waists and fuller busts. My small frame stayed straight and flat.
The boys in our grade had started showing interest in girls this year, starting to ask lucky girls out of dates and inviting them to boy/girl parties. Both Clare and Mel had been to several and excitedly spoke of spin the bottle games and 7-minutes-in-heaven.
Me…not so much.
I did still look like a little kid. My shiny metal smile and kinky hair didn’t do me any favours, I was keeping my fingers crossed that now the horrible contraption had been removed from my mouth that I might possibly one day get a coveted invite to a party too. I didn’t really want to go round kissing any of the boys in our grade, or any grade really, but I didn’t like this feeling I got being left out of everything. This empty, sinking feeling I got whenever invites were handed out at school, never having one pressed into my hand or slipped into my locker.
“Adrienne!” My mother only ever called me by my full name when she was really exasperated.
“Five more minutes, mom,” I pushed my lower lip out and clasped my hands together in front of my chest, pleading at her. “I still haven’t looked at the new releases.”
“Adie, I don’t think you’re going to have enough room on your bookcase for the books you’ve already chosen, let alone adding anymore!” My dad chuckles from behind the stack of books cradled in his arms.
“Five minutes, young lady,” my mom warns, glancing at her watch, “and only five because it’s getting late, and we still need to eat before we got out.”
The sun was threatening to set as we pulled to a stop on the field which was used as a carpark when the fair was in town. Clare, Mel and I jumped out excitedly as soon as my dad had pulled the handbrake up in our old, faded Mazda.
“Now girls, we’re trusting you to be well behaved and considerate of all the other people here tonight. If you start showing us you can behave like grown-ups, we’ll start treating you a little more like grown-ups, okay?” My mom steps forward and starts fussing with my multicoloured scarf that my friends had given me for my birthday present this year.
“Mom!” I chastise. “How is this treating me like a grown-up!”
“I’m sorry,” she purses her lips, “you’re still my little girl no matter how old you get.”
“Have fun, munchkin.” My dad stoops down and kisses the tip of my nose, making me blush as my friends’ giggle behind me.
We link arms and start making our way towards the meandering queue for the entrance booth, leaving behind my parents’ words of instruction of where and when we were to meet them later, and queries of if we had enough money.
The Grosvenor Family Fair came through our town every year. It usually rolled in during the last week of October and was gone by the beginning of November. The first sighting of the vans pulling the sleeping hunks of metal which would soon be ferris wheels and fun houses marked the true beginning of autumn for the kids in my town. The schedule for us was always to visit the fair the day before Halloween.
Once we’d paid our admission, we always made our way straight to the hot donut stand – I craved those hot sugary rings all year. So I was more than a little miffed when my two best friends pulled me the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” I turned my nose back towards the sweet smells, my mouth already salivating with the promise of goodies. “Donuts!”
“We’re meeting the boys,” Clare tutts, rolling her eyes at me. “You can’t meet them stuffing your face with greasy donuts.”
Mel flashes me a sympathetic smile and squeezes my hand. “We’ll go grab some later on, Adie. But we promised the boys we’d meet them as soon as we got here.”
An hour later we were still stood by a dumb shooting game that the two boys my friends were fawning over seemingly never wanted to leave. I sigh heavily, rolling my eyes as Clare clapped gleefully when Simon bursts yet another dumb balloon. A low chuckle draws my attention, and the young guy helping run the stall grins at me. I feel my cheeks grow hot as he winks at me.
“Dylan! Go grab my smokes from the van, boy.”
He rolls his eyes, still grinning at me, and vaults over the side of the stall, disappearing into the dark shadows between the vans.
“Are you coming, Adie?” I turn back to where Clare is glaring at me, her hand on her hip and one eyebrow raised.
“Um, where?”
“My older brother has got some bottles of booze, he said we can go hang out by the oak,” Simon replies, slinging his arm lazily around her shoulders. The oak was a huge old oak tree which was on the opposite side of the field, a well-known hangout for the slightly older kids.
“I don’t really want to. Let’s go ride the bumper cars or something?” I look hopefully at my friends, already knowing the answer. Mel actually looks kind of sorry, but Clare is just gazing wistfully up at Simon.
“Don’t be such a baby, Adie,” she glances at me with a shrug.
“B-but it’s my birthday, we’re supposed to hit all the rides like we normally do.” I try to swallow the hot tears which are threatening, knowing it will only give her baby comment more weight.
“Jeez, Adie! We’ll just go and have a couple of drinks, hang for a little bit and then we can come do the rides and stuff.”
I shake my head, turning and stomping away, leaving my friends with their new boy friends. Stupid boys. I hear Mel call out to me as I stumble into the crowd, but neither girl bothers to actually follow me.
I wander round, the lights and the noise swallowing me up and helping to block out my disappointment. I buy my donuts at last, the warm paper bag rustling happily in my hand as I munch the sweet rings of deep-fried goodness, and I soon find myself back at the dumb shooting game where I’d left my friends.
Sucking the sugar off my fingers I walk down the side of the stall searching for a bin. A soft moan from behind a canvas flap makes me stop. I creep forward as more moans float out, only just audible over the jubilant music and raucous laughter.
On the other side of the tent, in the shadows, was the boy from the stall, his jeans rumpled around his calves, his bum on show, clenching as he thrust into a girl who was bent over in front of him. A weird tingle runs down my spine, settling in my bottom, and I felt my cheeks heat up.
I knew enough to know what I was watching, even though I had never seen someone having intercourse before. He grunts a few times, and then moves away from the girl who giggles as she hikes her knickers back up. As he bends down to grab his own jeans, I catch sight of his…appendage. I’m not sure what an average thing looked like, but his looked huge to my innocent eyes.
“Like what you see, rainbow girl?” I jump at his voice. Shocked, I drag my eyes away from his crotch and focus on his face. He grins widely and winks, buttoning his jeans back up. “You want a ride too? Only cost you two tickets.”
I turn on my heel and run away, his laughter following me down the dark alleyway, taunting me past the bright rides and screaming riders.
As we drove home, and I pretended to listen to the whispered story of kisses with tongues and the first tastes of alcohol from my excited friends, all I could think about was that first unsolicited peek at a boy’s penis.
And how much it excited me.
